AfterDawn: Tech news

Google Maps wipes clouds from the sky, provides greater global detail

Written by James Delahunty @ 26 Jun 2013 5:46 User comments (5)

Google Maps wipes clouds from the sky, provides greater global detail

Google has made vast improvements to its Earth satellite imagery across several of its products, cleaning up previous bad images and wiping even clouds from the skies.
The improvement virtually eliminates clouds, includes refreshed imagery for regions of the world where high-resolution imagery is not yet available, and offers a more comprehensive and accurate view of the texture of our planet's landscape.

Using Google Earth Engine technology, Google's engineers mined hundreds of terabytes of data from the USGS's and NASA's Landsat 7 satellite, resulting in an image of the entire planet with a resolution of 15 meters per pixel.

The resulting 800,000 megapixel global image is so big that if you wanted to print it at a standard resolution of 300 dots per inch you would need a piece of paper the size of a city block.

Check out Google's Maps blog for pictures highlighting improvements.

Tags: Google Maps
Previous Next  

5 user comments

126.6.2013 18:20

Microsoft sends up planes to make clouds...google erases them...Apple says that a cloud in the middle of the ocean is Iran. :)

226.6.2013 19:07

i thought it was north korea or is it that sky floating nsa platform spying on the world's cellphone traffic?

326.6.2013 22:04

Wow. To live in this day and age.

427.6.2013 13:55

Google Maps wipes clouds from the sky, providing the NSA a greater global detail to spy on us.
NSA Troll: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BNyL6LJCUAA2F5v.jpg:large

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 27 Jun 2013 @ 2:15

528.6.2013 07:49

I'm waiting for them to improve the resolution to the point where they can eliminate that constantly barking dog up my street.

Comments have been disabled for this article.

Latest news

Sony suspends memory card sales because memory chips are simply not available Sony suspends memory card sales because memory chips are simply not available (28 Mar 2026 6:49)
Sony has announced that it is temporarily suspending the sale of memory cards used in mobile phones and digital cameras, among other things. The company states that the reason is problems with the availability of memory chips.
Austria plans to ban social media for under 14 year olds Austria plans to ban social media for under 14 year olds (28 Mar 2026 6:17)
Austria is planning to ban social media for children under 14. The reform aims to protect children from harmful effects and addictions, but at the same time, it is problematic from a privacy perspective.
TP-Link urges users to update their routers - several vulnerabilities patched TP-Link urges users to update their routers - several vulnerabilities patched (26 Mar 2026 1:56)
Serious security vulnerabilities have been discovered in several TP-Link router models, for which patches were released at the end of March 2026. The company urges users to update their router software immediately.
Google: The feared Q-Day is now expected to happen in 2029 Google: The feared Q-Day is now expected to happen in 2029 (25 Mar 2026 4:32)
Google has advanced its estimate of when current forms of encryption will become insecure. The moment is called Q-Day, or Quantum Day, when the computational power of quantum computers will be sufficient to break currently used encryptions.
OpenAI shuts down its AI video service Sora OpenAI shuts down its AI video service Sora (24 Mar 2026 6:28)
OpenAI has decided to shut down Sora, its AI video creator, just months after its release. The decision is due to issues such as copyright problems and the deepfake phenomenon.

News archive